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Former Black Panther, Geronimo Pratt, Dead At 63

Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt died of a heart attack yesterday in his home in Tanzania.

The former high-ranking member of the Black Panther party was incarcerated for 27 years for the kidnap and murder of Caroline Olsen on a Santa Monica tennis court back in 1968. Even though the husband of the victim that survived the robbery pointed out another man as the attacker, a judge ruled that the jury was not informed.

Pratt served his time and eight years of that time he was in solitary confinement. He was freed in 1997.

Stuart Hanlon, a San Francisco attorney who helped overturn Pratt’s murder conviction said to The Times,
“Geronimo was a powerful leader. For that reason he was targeted.”

The godfather of the late Tupac Shakur was a human rights activist whose case became a symbol of racial injustice during the 1960s.